1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a charging apparatus that charges a storage battery.
2. Related Art
In related art, there is known a charging apparatus used for charging a storage battery mounted in vehicles (see, for example, JP-A-UM-63-191836 and JP-A-2011-160615).
For example, JP-A-UM-63-191836 discloses a charging apparatus that includes an outer case, a drum-shaped inner case rotatably supported by the outer case, and an electric (input-output) cable capable of being wound around the outer periphery surface of the inner case. In the charging apparatus, the drum-shaped inner case is manually rotated to wind the electric cable around the peripheral surface of the inner case, and then the electric cable is held in the outer case.
JP-A-2011-160615 discloses a charging apparatus that includes an electric cable and a cable reel for winding up the electric cable by driving a motor. In the charging apparatus, the cable reel is mounted in a linear-shaped base which is located between a pair of rails provided in a wall surface of a garage and is movable with the cable reel along the rails by driving a motor. This cable reel is movable with the base along the rails, and is also movable relative to the base by driving a motor.
In both of JP-A-UM-63-191836 and JP-A-2011-160615 mentioned above, the electric cable of the charging apparatus is wound about the drum-shaped case or the cable reel. Therefore, the electric cable is likely to be unevenly wound up or tensional. Further, the electric cable may be curled while being repeatedly wound about the drum-shaped case or the cable reel. It may be problematically laborious to expand such a curled electric cable when charging a battery.
In addition, in the charging apparatus disclosed in JP-A-UM-63-191836, the drum-shaped case is required to be kept manually rotated until the electric cable is completely wound up. Therefore, the amount of work involved in storing the electric cable is large. On the other hand, in the charging apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2011-160615, the electric cable is wound up by a motor. Therefore, although the amount of work is small, the size of the charging station becomes unavoidably large.